Practising drawing faces
by Midori-Berry
Summary: Rimmer always seems to be scribbling something in a book, and is very secretive about it, and Lister wants to find out what's in the book. ((My first Red Dwarf fanfiction, based upon my headcanon that Rimmer is really good at art.))


Rimmer had been watching him all day. Lister had noticed, but hadn't actually said anything about it, choosing instead to play his guitar in an attempt to drive Rimmer away so he could eat his curry in peace. He wasn't even sure what it was Rimmer was doing, looking up at Lister when he thought Lister wasn't looking, then looking back down at his lap, his brows knitted in concentration. A book rested upon his lap, though it wasn't one Lister was allowed to look inside.

Many times he had seen Rimmer sat hunched over the book, scribbling furiously, sometimes in pen, but usually in pencil. Any time that Lister had previously tried to have a look in the book, Rimmer would dramatically cover the book with his body and insult Lister until he left or dropped the subject. Lister had of course tried to look for the book when Rimmer was off doing whatever it was that he did, but he never seemed to have much luck after checking all of the regular places that Rimmer would hide things.

Lister supposed he wouldn't have minded Rimmer being there, but it was the quiet but constant scratching of the pencil on the paper, only broken by the glances up at lister, that was really getting on his nerves. Any time he heard the scratching stop, he would look Rimmer in the eyes and play a discordant strum of the guitar. Every time this happened, Rimmer would wince, sneer, then look back down at the book and continue. This had happened about 14 times, and both of them seemed to be quite annoyed at this point.

Standing up and stretching, Lister let out a groan as he haphazardly dropped the guitar where he had just been sitting. The sound of the guitar hitting the chair was enough to vaguely snap rimmer out of his busied state.

"Oh, leaving are you?" He muttered to Lister, sounding somewhat bitter. That was odd, Lister thought, as surely Rimmer would want him gone, what with the constant shredding on his guitar.

"Nah, just having a stretch or whatever. So, what is it you're doing? I've seen you looking over here a bunch of times now, you trying to psychoanalyse me and write down the results or something?" Lister casually strolled over, trying to get a glance at what was in the book.

Rimmer moved the book out of Lister's line of sight and rolled his eyes with a small tut, "No. I'm surprised you even know what that word means."

Placing his hands behind his back, Lister strolled around to Rimmers side with an innocent whistle. Rimmer kept moving the book away, so that Lister wouldn't be able to see its contents. Lister however knew that this was going to happen, and before Rimmer could even let out a yelp of surprise, Lister swung his arm around rimmer and snatched the book from him with a triumphant yell.

With one arm, he pushed a fuming Rimmer away, while the other held the book away from Rimmer's swinging arms, as Rimmer scrambled about trying to reach out to grab the book back.

"Well, let's have a look at what you've been writing here, eh?" Smirked Lister, amidst Rimmers loud protests.

Opening the book, Lister was expecting to be met with pages of writing, but was somewhat taken aback when he saw detailed pencil sketches. The first few pages were dated back when Rimmer was still alive, and were somewhat faded, but then as he flicked through the pages, more of them were dated recently. A lot of the drawings were of the ship, of starbug and of the skutters, though coming up to more recent dates there were a couple of Kryten and even one of The Cat. When he got to the page that Rimmer was working on, he was surprised to see an unfinished sketch of himself.

While he was busy gawping at the drawing, Rimmer was finally able to lean over and grab his sketchbook back while Lister was distracted.

"I'll be taking this back now, thank you." He sneered, shooting a glare at Lister, who was still somewhat in shock from his discovery. He had done art in the past, but it was more cartoony than anything, the sketches Rimmer had done were realistic, shaded, and had incredible attention to detail.

"Rimmer, those sketches, they're really good." Lister said, wide eyed, staring at the hologram.

Rimmer was almost as taken aback as Lister was. He had never been complimented for his artwork before, it was always thrown away by his parents, who had wanted him to focus on his Space Corps exams. He couldn't help that he prefered to be more artistic. It helped him learn when he would doodle, and he often made elaborate timetables to help him in his studies, even if he did spend more time making timetables than he did studying.

"What." Was the first thing that came out of Rimmer's mouth, him being so unsure how to take the sudden compliment. "I mean yes of course they are, I-I was practising... Drawing f-faces, I… Thanks." Rimmer was stopped in his tirade by the small but genuine looking smile on Lister's face.

"How long have you been drawing Rimmer?" Lister asked, gesturing to the book, a look of wonderment in his eyes.

"I brought this particular book on Mimas when we were on leave, I've had it since then, I stashed it away pretty well, so it survived all this time. I had obviously stopped drawing after I died, since I was a soft light hologram, but after the whole Legion thing, I started up with art again. " Rimmer smiled, though it seemed somewhat melancholy. "I drew before then of course, but none of it survived, it was all trashed by my parents…"

"Ah… Well, hey. You have your book now, and I'm pretty sure I saw some other art supplies down in storage, so there's always an opportunity to try something new."

"I suppose you're right Lister… Thanks." Rimmer nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips.

"No problem Rimmer."


End file.
